Silence implies consent, and there has been too much silence in European capitals as democracy has eroded in Budapest and Warsaw.

In a call for support to our colleagues, my fellow rabbis and I hold to holy words. The Talmud says: “Silence implies consent.” We will not be silent. Let our absence during Trump’s speech be the most eloquent statement that we can make at this time.

It’s important for world leaders to take a more consistent position when it comes to public statements on the Middle East. Just because Israel is the more powerful side of the dispute with the Palestinians does not mean it is always wrong and that hateful acts, contrary to Ban Ki-moon’s recent justifications, are understandable, if not inevitable. Acts of hatred call out for condemnation because silence implies consent.

* WARSAW, 27 February 2016 - On Saturday over 150 thousand people from all over Poland joined in demonstrations against the current government. The march through the city centre is organised by the committee for the protection of democracy (KOD). Poles have been frustrated by actions seen by many as usurpation of power by the conservative Law and Justice party which won the recent elections.

Officers tracked Hope back to the home she shared with the man and was taken into custody (giam cầm). Hope, identified by a tattoo (hình xăm) to her leg reading, 'Still Standing,' is being held on a $33,000 bond at the Brevard County Jail Complex in Sharpes.

... Police said Hope then aimed the vehicle at the man and struck him, causing him to spill up on the hood (nắp ca-pô) of the car and headlong into the windshield (kính chắn gió). Hope then struck two other vehicles as she attempted to leave the parking lot. Police have not yet released the video.

Whatever the various, often overlapping, causes of conflict – ideology, religion, ethnicity, competition for resources – the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz two centuries ago gave the pithiest answer to the question of why we resort to violence: “War is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.”

A common definition is that war is an 'act of force to compel our enemy to do our will'. A more modern definition is that war is a 'universal phenomenon whose form and scope is defined by the society that wages it'.

As Clausewitz variously said “War is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will”, and is “..nothing but a wrestling match on a larger scale.”…. "War is the continuation of Politik by other means". I believe Argentina and Uruguay to be at war.

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” George Santayana’s dictum seems particularly appropriate nowadays, with the Arab world, from Syria and Iraq to Yemen and Libya, a cauldron of violence; Afghanistan locked in combat with the Taliban; swaths of central Africa cursed by bloody competition – often along ethnic/religious lines – for mineral resources.

Hogia tells the story of three soldiers, Iwan Jones, Diane Taylor and Telor Roberts, who meet in a Caernarfon pub after the final withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Despite their horrific experiences in Afghanistan – deaths, injuries, the senseless war, the psychological experiences once they’ve returned home is even worse. Little by little it becomes apparent that it is impossible for them to return to their former lives. The nightmare experience of being on the front line never goes away. Plato’s words, “Only the dead have seen the end of war”, are as relevant as ever.

Healing one of Christianity’s oldest divisions is a noble goal. But when Francis meets Putin’s Patriarch, he would be wise to remember the old English dictum: “He who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon.”

At the state banquet at Buckingham Palace, which saw Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn conform with the dress code by wearing white tie and tails, Xi dwelt on their two countries’ alliance during the second World War. Before he sat down, however, the president issued an unsubtle warning to Britain not to waver in its embrace of China, wrapped in the language of a fortune cookie. “As an old Chinese adage goes: ‘Opportunity may knock just once; grab it before it slips away.’ In Britain, you also have a famous saying: ‘A wise man turns chance into good fortune.’” They also have a saying in Britain: He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon. By Wednesday, however, any reserve had been abandoned as Cameron and his ministers trumpeted tens of billions of pounds worth of contracts that were Britain’s reward for their courtship of Xi.